COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

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CHAPTER 9

• COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

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COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGESPiagets
Preoperational Stage approximately two to seven
years of age .
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• Symbolic Function Sub-stage two to four years
  of age where the child gains the ability to
  represent an object mentally that is not present.
• Egocentrism feature of preoperational thought
  where child is unable to distinguish between
  ones own perspective and that of others.
• Animism second feature of preoperational
  thought where child has belief that inanimate
  objects have lifelike qualities.

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• Intuitive Thought Sub-stage four to seven years
  of age where children begin to use primitive
  reasoning and have many questions this stage is
  characterized by a childs assuredness that she
  is correct in her thinking.
• Conservation the preoperational child has a
  lack of conservation in that he feels an amount
  becomes larger or smaller when it is manipulated.

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Vygotskys Theory of Development described in
three basic principles

• Childs cognitive skills are understood only when
  developmentally analyzed.
• Cognitive skills are mediated by words and
  language, which facilitate mental activity.
• Cognitive skills originate in sociocultural
  background of the child.

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• Zone of proximal development (ZPD) range of
  tasks beyond the mastery of the child but that
  are learned with guidance.
• Scaffolding consistently adjusting the amount
  of guidance to match the students performance
  level.
• Language and thought Language issued for
  self-regulation and is called inner speech, is
  considered an important tool of thought in each
  child.
• Teaching strategies based on Vygotskys theory
  Child is challenged through use of ZPD and
  scaffolding to bring her to higher levels of
  performance. Learning should be with skilled
  peers and teachers who monitor the childs use of
  private speech and assess her ZPD, not her IQ.
• Evaluation and comparing Vygotskys and Piagets
  theories Piaget considers inner speech to
  reflect immaturity, not a tool in development.
  Vygotsky is a social constructivist while Piaget
  rejects the impact of social influence and
  believes children construct knowledge through
  transforming and organizing prior knowledge.

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Information Processing Memory plays a key role
in cognitive development.

• Attention In early childhood, a moving away
  from habituation and dishabituation toward
  selective attention focusing on a specific
  aspect of experience while ignoring others.
• Control of attention Preschool children begin
  to focus their attention specifically (on
  television, for example) versus toddlers who
  wander their attention.
• Salient versus relevant dimensions From
  preschool year to age six to seven there is a
  gradual shift toward attending to relevant
  aspects versus those that stand out and are
  flashy when solving a problem.
• Adjusting attention A childs ability to change
  the rate of attention when confronting easy to
  difficult material (i.e., reading).
• Knowledge of attention Preschool versus older
  children do not seem to have control over how to
  focus on a subject in order to remember it.